


That Evening, When You Were Mine

by Moonknife



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, Drug Use, F/M, Hallucinations, Murder, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 04:05:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonknife/pseuds/Moonknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Frank could let go of his anger, hid rage, his hatred? What if he could forgive himself for not saving his family? Maybe then he could tell Karen Page how he feels about her. Maybe he could show her.</p><p>Or: While on his Punisher gig, Frank gets dosed with a mystery drug that lets him forget his anger and indulge in some quality hallucinations. A shameless riff on the sex pollen trope. Not beta’d, so there is no one to blame but myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Evening, When You Were Mine

**Author's Note:**

> I’m supposed to be working on my multi-chapter, and I am, but I decided to pause to write some smut.

It was a warm night in Hell’s Kitchen, with a loose fog wreathing low over the sidewalks and gleaming yellow under the street lamps. Frank liked these kinds of evenings. It felt like something was about to happen. And this particular evening was a good one, because he’d managed to take out most of the Lower East Side chapter of the Hell Hounds, an affiliate gang to the Dogs of War.

 

It was satisfying finding that rotten pocket of humanity and cleaning them out earlier, even though he missed one. One skinny motherfucker who managed through sheer dumb luck to be grabbing a pack of smokes at a bodega down the block when Frank shredded the rest of the Hounds from an adjacent rooftop.

 

No problem, though. He tracked the little shit after he ran off to a place in the Meatpacking District.

 

These fucking low lives and their abandoned warehouses. Real original.

 

Luckily for him, it wasn’t the only lonely building in this neighborhood. He’d broken into an empty apartment building across the street easily enough and set up his M60 in the window of a third floor flop directly across the street from the warehouse.

 

Trouble was, the stupid punk was making this hard.

 

Frank squinted through the sight of his M60. He had a decent shot through the warehouse’s west window, but the fucker kept moving in and out of his eye line like a moth around a porch light. Normally, Frank would just wait him out. Taking out a single target sometimes required patience, and Frank was a patient man.

 

But not tonight. Maybe it was that weird mist, or maybe it was the heat, but Frank wasn’t in the mood to play a carnival game of whack-a-mole with some moron. He put the M60 down. He didn’t need it. The Glock 17 holstered at his hip would do just fine. Or maybe he would just use his hands.

 

He took his time walking down the warped stairs and out into the New York air. His thoughts strayed for a moment. Would Karen write a story about the Hell Hounds meeting their end? She never wrote about the things he did. For some reason, it bothered him. He hadn’t seen her since he’d shot up those ninjas for Red and she’d been down in the street with the cops. She’d looked up at him and for one bizarre moment he’d wanted to go down to her, to tell her about his decision and why she wouldn’t be hearing from him again.

 

But he hadn’t done that, of course. And it was good that she didn’t write about him. If she did, they might see each other. She was really, really good at tracking down people that didn’t want to be found. He was under no illusions that he could escape Karen Page if she made up her mind to find him.

 

He didn’t bother with stealth. Again, his patience was mysteriously absent tonight. Instead, he kicked in the door, having noticed earlier that this goon seemed too tweaked or too scared to lock it behind him.

 

Must be the first one: inside the warehouse was the last Hell Hound, kneeling on the ground with a needle poised above his pocked forearm. Fucking pathetic. He looked up at Frank with his mouth hanging open.

 

“Hey…hey, man,” the kid sputtered. And he really was just a kid. A dumb kid who made a serious mistake joining that garbage biker gang. Too bad for this mama’s boy: Frank Castle was born missing the sympathy gene.

 

No need to use his gun, then. Frank caught up to the kid in two strides and hauled him to his feet.

 

“End of the line, dumbass,” Frank growled. He grabbed the kid around his skinny neck and was honestly surprised when the younger man swung up his hand and jammed the needle into Frank’s arm. Frank caught a glimpse of bright purple liquid before the kid pressed the plunger and the shit disappeared into him. _Into him_. Jesus Christ.

 

With a bellow of fury, Frank snapped the kid’s neck.

 

The kid’s body crumpled at Frank’s feet, but the former soldier was no longer paying attention. “What the fuck?” He hissed. How could he have been so stupid? Always disarm your opponent before getting in close quarters, any green kid in boot camp knew that.

 

Oh, fuck. What was this stuff, anyway? Not heroin—Frank had seen plenty of that in Afghanistan. Some kind of meth, maybe? Purple meth? What else did people shoot up? In some ways, the Marines had kept him naive about this kind of thing. Soldiers caught puffing on a joint or even huffing glue found themselves dishonorably discharged before they could exhale. Frank never got anywhere near any of that shit.

 

A wave of…something…hit him. What was that? Euphoria? Oh shit. He had to get out of here and back to his safe house _now_ before he ended up passed out, helpless, next to a dead body.

 

He staggered out into the street. Whatever this stuff was, it was working fast. Another wave hit him. It felt good. It felt really good. And Frank was not used to feeling good. Also, the pavement beneath his feet seemed very far away. He looked up at the night sky, and the moon. The sky was vibrating with hidden music and the moon tasted like whiskey.

 

Okay, not going to make it to the safe house. It was twelve impossibly far blocks away. Anyway, he didn't really feel like walking anymore. It seemed needlessly difficult.

 

No, he had to keep going. He could go back to the squalid apartment building across the street. He didn’t want to leave the M60 there anyway. Why did he even have that gun? Killing the bad guys. Yes, that’s why.

 

The fetid lobby wasn’t as bad as he remembered. At least it was dark, which was nice and cool. The dead palm tree he could see in the sliver of moonlight by the broken elevator might be breathing. Anyway, which floor? Third floor. That was right.

 

He trudged up the stairs. This was even harder than walking, but it was okay because he’d had a lot of training. And his skin felt so hot and tight. His clothes were itching. Really itching. His armored vest with its white skull weighed so much. It was strange that these things didn’t normally bother him, because they were sure as hell bothering him now.

 

This is the third floor. Probably. Which door? He tries one but it’s locked. Did he lock the door? No, since he doesn’t have a key. He doesn’t live here.

 

He tries another door and it swings open. He can see the M60 sitting under the living room window.

 

 _Thank god_.

 

Home. No, not home. This was just a place to lay low until whatever this was cleared his system. Frank stumbled into the living room and tore off his vest. So much better. So much lighter. Did he always feel so _heavy_? And his shirt, it had to go too.

 

Ah, that was the best. No more weight, no more itching. His head was spinning a little, but it felt nice.

 

It felt _fun_. He smiled. This was a little like a roller coaster. He liked roller coasters. His kids hadn’t been old enough—well, Lisa had been, but Frank Junior would have gone ballistic if his sister had been able to ride a roller coaster without him. So they hadn’t gone, at least not with him.

 

But maybe they’d gone without him. They’d done everything without him because he was always away. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq again, Afghanistan again.

 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Sorry, sorry.”

 

But for once, he couldn’t hold onto to his sadness, his rage, or his anger. Whatever this stuff was, it wouldn’t let him be himself.

 

“Do you want to hear a joke?”

 

Frank opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized they were closed. This apartment is not as bad as he thought. It looked kind of nice. Especially with Karen Page standing in it.

 

“Is it funny?” He smiled again, and she smiled back. God, she was beautiful. She looked like an old-time movie star, with her waves of golden hair and her fitted dress. Veronica Lake.

 

“Thank you,” she said. Oh, he must have said that out loud. Well, she deserved to hear it.

 

“Guys in my unit would have had pictures of you,” he said. “They woulda put you up on the walls, up on the bunks in the tents. A dame to die for.”

 

Karen shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Frank. No one has to die for me.”

 

“Yeah, ‘cause you take ‘em out yourself. You’re tough. Tough, pretty lady. I wish you would be more careful. I wish you would write about me sometimes.”

 

Frank took a few steps closer because the nearer he got to her the better he felt. Was the wallpaper gold or green behind her? Whatever color it was, it was her color. It had been dark in this place when he walked in, but there was soft light now. It was coming from all around them. The light seemed to bend around Karen like it was praying to her.

 

“You should write about me sometimes. Come and find me.” He reached out and wound a lock of her hair around his finger. Why didn’t he touch soft things more often?

 

Why didn’t he touch _her_ more often? He wasn’t sure if he had realized this before, but he realized it now: he wanted Karen Page fiercely. And if he could have her, and if he could just get rid of the last of the cartel and the Irish, then maybe…

 

“I wish I could start over, Karen,” he whispered. A sharp pain reverberated through his gut. He should _not_ be saying this. He shouldn’t even be thinking it. He never ever let himself think this, because he didn’t deserve it. He had proven that he wasn’t fit to be a husband and father. But he couldn’t stop the words from coming, and the more he talked, the more that pain seemed to fade away.

 

“There was this house in Connecticut, it belonged to my Uncle Carl. It was one of those Victorian houses with this amazing porch. I used to love playing on that porch as a kid.”

 

Karen leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to his jaw. A rush of warmth flowed from where her lips touched his skin and he swayed, putting his hands on her arms to keep steady.

 

“This house, I used to go to it every summer with my folks. Uncle Carl had horses, and I used to ride them all day long. And I loved that house, Karen. But as I got older I realized that it was kind of falling apart, you know? Old houses like that need attention constantly. Something is always going on. Pipes are leaking, plaster is cracking, foundation is settling. You have to have a relationship with a house like that. It takes work. Commitment. Uncle Carl didn’t really have that.”

 

She pressed another kiss closer to his ear. It felt so good. She smelled the way she always did, like cloves and something darker. Unexpected. One of his hands trailed down her arm to her hip. He stepped closer and she did too, and then there was no more space between them. Karen was in his arms, and he was in hers.

 

There was music playing in the distance too. A song he liked but couldn’t remember the name of. He hadn’t felt like this in so long. Maybe never. Everything was perfect. Just the way it should be.

 

“I wanted that house so bad, I asked Uncle Carl for it when I was fifteen. And then I forgot about it. When I was in Iraq for the second time, I got a letter from some lawyer telling me that Uncle Carl was dead, and that he left me the house.”

 

The curve of her neck was the most perfect shape he’d ever seen, and he kissed her there while she kissed him high on his cheekbone. He felt her hands on the bare skin of his back, and the warmth of her touch turned suddenly scalding. He had to tell her now, before he forgot.

 

“Karen,” he murmured. He leaned his head back but he couldn’t bear to separate from her completely. She seemed to understand and gazed back at him, her blue eyes clear of shadows. “I own that house in Connecticut. I always thought I would go back there someday, but now I know I never will. But if I could, I would take you with me.”

 

Karen tilted her head a little, her gaze searching. He knew she understood, because she always did. She was like him.

 

“If you could start again, you would be my husband,” she said quietly. “And I would be your wife. And we would live in the house in Connecticut that you would fix up while I worked for the local paper. We would have a dog. We would have children. We would grow old and die and be buried side by side.”

 

He sighed in relief. “Yes, that’s right.”

 

She touched his unshaven cheek. “Yes,” she echoed. “That’s right.”

 

And then she kissed him. She didn’t hold back, but pressed his mouth open with hers. Her tongue touched his and joy filled him like water in a glass. _Yes._ He wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him and the music got nearer. The music was in his blood. The music was Karen.

 

Her hands roamed and so did his, and her nice dress seemed to fade like smoke and then she was in her bra and underwear. He was in his pants and boots. Clothes were so terrible, except when you got to take them off of someone. He dragged his hands up her back and undid the clasp of her bra, tossing it aside. Then he took one of her nipples in his mouth and she made a sound better than the music.

 

There was a bed on the floor, just a mattress covered in soft blankets. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now that he saw it, standing seemed like a serious limitation on how much of Karen’s body he could reach.

 

So he pulled her down next to him and just looked at her for a long moment. She was tall, slender as a willow tree, her lips red from kissing him. She made him _ache_ all over, and then she smiled and pulled him down to her and the ache settled in a decidedly southern location.

 

Her skin under his hands and mouth was more intoxicating than (what was it?) any liquor or any kill. He lost himself in her for minutes or maybe hours, and then he kissed his way down her belly and used both hands to pull down her underwear. He touched her blonde curls reverently and she arched her back.

 

“Frank,” she said, and he heard her voice down to his bones.

 

He pressed his mouth between her legs and she gasped. She was unexpected here too—she tasted like salt and sea memory and Karen. He moved his tongue against her clit with slow deliberation until her whole body shook and only when she begged did he speed up and bring her to her orgasm.

 

She came quietly, with her eyes locked on his. Karen never did things the way he thought she would. He loved that about her.

 

Then she pulled him up and kissed him deeply, taking the taste of her away. He missed it immediately. Her hand slipped down to cup his erection through his pants and he growled in frustration. Pants! Fucking clothes.

 

He was so turned on he could barely peel himself away from her, but he managed to sit upright to pull off his boots, pants, and boxers. He turned back to find her sitting up, and she pulled him into a deep kiss that made white light dance behind his eyes. She pushed him back so that he was sitting and she climbed into his lap, her arms wound around his neck.

 

“I miss you,” she said, and kissed him again.

 

“I miss you too,” he told her. He meant to say more, to tell her that he wished he were different, that he could be fixed to be a better man, but she tilted her hips and lowered herself onto him and then, for just a moment, everything in his mind went dark. Quiet. There was nothing in the world but Karen and pleasure that moved around him, over him, through him, and he wished then that everything could end here. That this could be the last thing he ever felt.

 

The thought didn’t frighten him or enrage him. It touched a small, gentle thing inside that he had forgotten; a spark that had been snuffed that day in Central Park but that had revived, somehow, in Karen’s presence.

 

But then she moved and ecstasy hit him harder than a bullet. His calm broke away and he grasped her hips, urging her on, and she obliged him. He pressed his open mouth to her neck, her chest, her shoulder, every part of her he could reach. Her fingers carded through his short hair and across his scalp. He was close, but he didn’t want this to end. It felt so good he wasn’t sure he could keep the pleasure under his skin. They found a rhythm. She fit against him so tightly that he didn’t think he could let go if he wanted to. He didn’t want to.

 

He realized he was speaking. “Please,” he was saying. “Please, please, please…”

 

Karen threw back her head and he felt her come again, her muscles moving around him, and it was too much. He came so hard that he almost passed out. Colors bloomed behind his eyelids and they stayed there when he opened his eyes. He was holding Karen so tightly she must have been uncomfortable, but she didn’t complain. Instead, she held him back.

 

There were hot tears on his face. He didn’t know if they were hers or his. He felt something profound had happened, and he wanted to remember the way it felt to be with Karen like this. Naked, connected, together.

 

But on the heels of that thought came exhaustion, a dark anchor pulling him toward the mattress. Karen sank down beside him, and he kept an arm over her belly. He had almost forgotten what it was like to sleep next to someone. But lying next to Karen...

 

“I won’t forget this,” he told her gravely, and she twined her fingers with his. He closed his eyes.

 

Then he cracked them open. “Wait,” he said and turned to look at her. She was disheveled and gorgeous. He felt…happy. She made him happy. “You were supposed to tell me a joke. What was it?”

 

She laughed breathlessly.

 

 _I did that_ , he thought a little giddily. _I took her breath away_.

 

She shifted onto her side to face him and kissed the back of his hand. “Well, a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar…”

 

 

****

 

He woke up slowly, knowing somehow this wasn’t going to be a good morning. First of all, there was the smell. Something had died in this room, and it hadn’t been that long ago. Second, the level of discomfort he was in told him that he had spent the night on a floor. He might be a former solider who had slept on his fair share of hard-ass ground, but he was getting too old for this shit. His back was letting him know this on no uncertain terms.

 

He cracked his eyes open to see a peeling ceiling above him. Where the fuck was he? He turned his head with a groan. God, he felt like shit. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry as a desert.

 

Weak morning sunlight poured through a dirty window. His M60 was propped up on the windowsill. Sloppy. He got to his feet slowly.

 

He remembered taking out the Hounds. He remembered killing the kid. He remembered the syringe full of purple liquid and then…

 

Nothing. He didn’t remember coming back here or crashing on the floor. He’d slept in his clothes, and he could tell he’d sweated all the way through them at some point during the night. No wonder, since summer was creeping up on Manhattan fast.

 

There was also something else, an unpleasant throb that he hadn’t felt before. A new sense of hollowness, different from the rage that usually burned in his brain, sat inside of him like a stone. Must be the come down from whatever the fuck that kid had stuck him with.

 

Anyway, he was used to regret, even if this particular version of it came with bitter tang of a memory lost and a promise forgotten.

 

_Karen…_

 

No. It was time to get back to work.

 


End file.
